/V^KVLZP[HJOPL]L[OLPUK\Z[Y`»ZOPNOLZ[M\SSTPZZPVUJHWHIPSP[`Å`PUNPUthe most remote regions of the world?It does so by hiring men and women who share a lifelongcommitment to being the best at what they do.AirScan®.It’s our people.AirScan® EO/IR / AirScan® GSI / AirScan® HREO / AirScan® ADTS / AirScan® SECURE / AirScan® ISR AcademyCelebrating 21 Years of Serviceto the ISR CommunityGEOSPATIALINTELLIGENCEFORUMSEPTEMBER2010VOLUME8 • ISSUE6WWW.GIF-KMI.COMFEATURESCOVER/ Q&A2121DEPARTMENTS2451835Editor’s PerspectivePeople/Program NotesUSGIFIndustry RasterCalendar, DirectoryINDUSTRYINTERVIEWJohn OlesakVice PresidentIntegrated IntelligenceNorthrop Grumman Information Systems3636Lieutenant General John C. KoziolDeputy Under Secretary of Defense,Joint and Coalition Warfighter SupportDirector, DoD ISR Task ForceLetter to Industry PartnersShortly after becoming director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Letitia A. Long addressed an open letterto industry partners and others about the importance ofgovernment-industry partnership.88Rich Basket of Tool KitsMore than ever, geospatial intelligence is being brought tobear in support of tactical operations, and this has challengedproviders of geospatial exploitation tool kits to catch up.By Peter Buxbaum1010Facing the ISR ChallengeGeospatial Intelligence Forum recently posed this questionto a number of leading companies: What do you see asthe most important technological advances from a militaryperspective currently under way in ISR?2828Rebalancing ISRAn area where the ISR community must develop a moreefficient balance concerns the approach to collecting,archiving and accessing huge volumes of data from hundreds,perhaps thousands of sensors as analysts increasingly focustheir attention on human targets and activities.By Pat Biltgen and Robert R. Tomes1414Standards Aid Incident CommandOpen Geospatial Consortium standards have helped overcomeobstacles to the Department of Homeland Security’s UnifiedIncident Command and Decision Support program.By Steven Ramage2626One of the frustrating things about editing a magazine about geospatialtechnology is that there is so much exciting going on—just in the government,what to speak of the private sector—that there is no way to write about it all.As GEOINT works its way into every nook and cranny of military andintelligence operations, it’s almost every day that a new program or capabilityemerges that could make a real difference in improving efficiency and effec-tiveness. While acknowledging that I’m neglecting more worthy initiativesthan I’m mentioning, I’d like to draw readers’ attention to:The latest version of the National Counterterrorism Center’s Worldwide Incidents Tracking •System (WITS). This database, available to the public at www.nctc.gov, has compiledinformation on terrorist attacks since 2004, but only in text format. The recently launchedWITS NextGen, however, includes mapping capabilities that enable users to locate incidentson Google Maps or Google Earth. These can then be visualized over time or according toclusters of attacks, density of attacks by numbers and “heat,” or relative attack activity.Operational 3-D Joint Capability Technology Demonstration. Recognizing the value—and •cost in money and time—of having three-dimensional imagery for field use, thisrecently launched program seeks to enhance the collection, processing, exploitation anddissemination of 3-D products. The goal is to provide for faster dissemination of high-resolution 3-D GEOINT data to warfighters in forward deployed low-bandwidth areas.GEOINT Visualization Enterprise Services. This National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency •project brings the agency’s resources together to provide rich geospatial content andanalysis directly to warfighters, intelligence officers and policymakers via Web-based tools.It offers visualization capabilities, analytic toolsand data services.“Had we but world enough and time,” as a poet oncewrote in an admittedly different context, each of these wouldbe worth a story. Until then, I’d like to tip my hat to allinvolved in these path-breaking GEOINT projects.OTHERKMI MEDIAGROUPMAGAZINES

CHALLENGES.BasketRichof Tool KitsThe non-stop forward march of technol-ogy has created new horizons for the collec-tion, analysis and exploitation of geospatialintelligence. The availability of full motionvideo, persistent surveillance data, satelliteimagery, LiDAR and other new data typesis providing analysts with the potential forunparalleled richness and accuracy to theimages and information they are dissecting.But perhaps the most important driversto the innovations being fostered in geospatialexploitation are the needs of warfighters incurrent U.S. military areas of operation. Morethan ever, geospatial intelligence is beingbrought to bear in support of tactical opera-tions, and this has challenged providers ofgeospatial exploitation tool kits to catch up.From these facts flow the other majortrends to be found in the development ofgeospatial exploitation technology. New typesof data to be exploited lead to the desire to fusethat information by layering one set of data ontop of another accurately and robustly. Thisin turn has accelerated the drive toward thedevelopment and adoption ofdata standards to make thathappen, as well as the movetoward taking an enterprise, asopposed to a desktop, approachto geospatial data and applica-tions.“I see increasingly thatgeospatial exploitation is pro-viding a foundation for tacti-cal intelligence,” said StuartBlundell, vice president forgeospatial products and solu-tions at Overwatch Systems, aunit of Textron. “Users want terrain imagery,features in two- and three-dimensional qual-ity, with full motion video data and otherdata layered on top of that to support tacticalexploitation.”The exploitation of more and complexdata types has become a major challenge ofproviders of geospatial tool kits. Besides video,which multiplies geometri-cally the number of imagesthat need to be processed,energy-sensing hyperspectraland multispectral data are alsomaking their way to analysts’desktops.“These can provide richerand more detailed analysis,”said Beau Legeer, director ofproduct marketing for ITTVisual Information Solutions.“One trend in the industryhas been to introduce a work flow approachthat guides the user one step at a time, frombringing the data in, to processing, analyzing,extracting and sharing thedata with other applications.”In addition, LiDAR datais becoming increasinglyimportant to analysts as aresult of the aerial surveil-lance being conducted overAfghanistan and Iraq. LiDAR,or light detection and rang-ing, is a system that uses laserbeams to map terrain eleva-tion. LiDAR reports elevationof scanned areas in the formof point clouds.“LiDAR involves large volumes of data,”noted Tom Lobonc, product line director fordefense at ERDAS. “You need different kindsof tools to work with LiDAR data. There arealso different ways to visualize LiDAR pointclouds.”Old-school geospatial exploitation hadanalysts accessing panchromatic images andperforming measurementsand visual analyses. The avail-ability of greater numbers ofdata sets, together with higherlevels of horsepower providedby computers, has spawnedthe desire to fuse that datainto rich, robust and accuratevisualizations, complete withfeatures like roads, rooftopsand bodies of water.“Analysts want to be able tohandle any number of sourcesand data sets of any size,” said Legeer. “That iswhat geospatial tool kits have to address.”The information overload engendered bythe explosion of data requires the applicationof automation to the analysis process. Morerobust algorithms and increases in comput-ing power allow geospatial exploitation toolkits to bring half a dozen types of data to theanalyst’s desktop. The ability to fuse multiplesources of data into a single visualization pro-vides greater assurance that the end productis accurate.“In earlier days, analysts worked with50 percent probabilities of accuracies,” saidLobonc. “Applying automation to data fusioncan give them 90 percent confidence thattheir analysis is accurate.”Tom LoboncStuart Blundellsblundell@overwatch.textron.comtom.lobonc@erdas.comwww.GIF-kmi.com10 | GIF 8.6ESSENTIALSTANDARDSFor industry to keep up with the demandfor new sensor data, the broad adoption ofstandards across all data types is essential.Standards define in detail how systems inter-pret data, and provide industry with a road-map for incorporating the processing andanalysis of new data such as video into theirexploitation tool kits.Standards such as those promulgated bythe Open Geospatial Consortium are increas-ingly being accepted and adopted by industryplayers as well as by the defense and intel-ligence communities. Some standards, suchas those for full motion video data, are stillbeing developed.“Standards set the framework for indus-try to more rapidly build capabilities,” saidRob Mott, vice president for military andintelligence solutions at Intergraph. “Onechallenge for industry is to build support intotool kits for those new sensor formats whilestandards are still in flux.”One model for the adoption of standardsoccurs when a proprietary system, such asESRI’s ArcGIS, gains widespread support,noted Sean Love, a business developmentmanager at Northrop Grumman. “If the devel-oper is willing to publish its standards, as ESRIdid, the other vendors are ableto create applications for thatenvironment,” he said.Lobonc sees broader col-laboration among commercialvendors, government agenciesand the standards community.The next step will be mandatedadherence to given standards.“We are not at the pointwhere anyone is saying youmust use this standard,” saidLobonc. “But we should begetting to the point wherestandards are enforced. Lack of adherence tostandards in some cases leads to the inabilityto solve certain problems.”Geospatial exploitation tool kits tradition-ally have been delivered as desktop applica-tions. Increasingly, however, they are evolvinginto enterprise applications accessed overservers. In some cases, hybrid architecturesseeking the best of both worlds have beendeveloped.Desktop applications provide analysts withrobust computing power. Enterprise applica-tions better allow for the storage of massiveamounts of data, and by some accountsreduce costs.The functionality of tool kit applica-tions does not necessarily differ dependingon the computing environment. “It is thesame application. It’s just being presentedand managed in a different sort of way,” saidLobonc.“In our world, analysts have traditionallyused the desktop,” said Mark Sarojak, BAESystems’ director of sales and marketing forSOCET GXP. “It was the best and only envi-ronment to do heavy numbercrunching. Now we see moreenterprise applications whereoperations can be handled ona centralized server while theanalyst sits at a desktop.”“Now that networks aregetting more bandwidth, it ismore possible to do this at theenterprise level,” added Love.Legeer believes that theenterprise model will be keyto the future of ITT-VIS tools.“The applications will behosted on servers right along-side of the data,” he said. “We see that as avery important trend and one that is veryreal.”But others, such as Sarojak and Blundell,don’t foresee ever getting away completelyfrom desktop applications.Blundell noted that it isimportant to provide custom-ers with cost-effective options,especially in today’s budget-cutting environment.Lobonc doesn’t see thedesktop-enterprise dichotomyin quite the same way as hiscolleagues. ERDAS’ approach,he said, is to regard all sourcesof computing, applications,and data, whether local ornetwork-accessible, as the“enterprise.”Given the multifaceted and dynamicenvironment in the GEOINT field, it is nosurprise that industry players are continuallyupdating their exploitation tool kits to meetongoing challenges.BAE SYSTEMSBAE Systems recently introduced GXPXplorer, which addresses the first step inanalyzing geospatial intelligence—findingthe data.“If they can’t find data, analysts can’t dotheir jobs,” said Sarojak. “Once they find itthey want to fuse it. Each data type has itsstrengths and weaknesses.”GXP Xplorer enables analysts to searchnot only their local catalogs but also othersources of available data, such as those storedon enterprise applications or on network-accessible libraries, by enabling federatedqueries across multiple sources.“Another new feature of BAE System’soffering is spatially enabled exploitation. Thisfeature essentially digitizesand stores analysts’ markupsof imagery by geolocation,data and time so that they canbe retrieved and exploited atsome future date.“Spatially enabled exploi-tation is new in the analysts’world,” said Sarojak. “It takesanalysis to next level. That isreal knowledge and contentmanagement.”Video exploitation is nowavailable in SOCET GXP, butwill receive greater emphasis,together with fusion of multiple data types,in SOCET GXP’s upcoming v3.2 release.“Analysts are faced with more and moredata every year,” said Sarojak. “We are work-ing hard to produce tools that enable them tofind data locally and on other sources to helpthem accomplish their jobs.”ERDASERDAS redesigned its Imagine geospatialpackage in its most recent release. The com-pletely redesigned interface, based on Micro-soft’s Ribbon-style Office 2007 and WindowsVista applications, allows users to accomplishtasks more efficiently. The location of toolshas been reorganized and made more intui-tive and work flows have been streamlined.Some tools have been consolidated so thatthere are fewer tools to contend with. Verylarge files are easier and quicker to open.An upcoming release scheduled for thisfall will endeavor to improve performanceand provide enhanced analysis and workflows for newer data sets such as photogram-metry and remote sensing. It will also featurea new and improved viewer, which will behandy in exploiting larger files.ERDAS introduced its Apollo serveraround three years ago in recognition ofthe growing interest in a client-server, asopposed to desktop, architecture for theaccess and operation of geospatial exploita-tion tools. “It is really coming into its ownMark Sarojakmark.sarojak@baesystems.comRob Mottrobert.mott@intergraph.comwww.GIF-kmi.com GIF 8.6 | 11now,” said Lobonc. “We continue to work onthat as well as desktop exploitation tools.”ERDAS is in the process of developing atool that will manage both desktop and enter-prise catalogs as one. Under this scheme,an analyst’s catalog located on the desktopwill act as a subset of the enterprise catalog,which will be accessed remotely. Data anddocuments located in a desktop catalog willbe easily pushed to the enterprise catalog.“We didn’t want to go with a server-onlyor desktop-only architecture,” said Lobonc.“An integrated approach latter is the best andmost versatile way to go.”INTERGRAPHIntergraph’s recent enhancements to itsgeospatial exploitation tool kit include capa-bilities to fuse full motion video, geospatialelevation data and satellite imagery into asingle view.“We regard full motion video as anothergeospatial data type,” said product managerElaine Woodling. “We can connect to mul-tiple kinds of data sources andWeb services.”As part of this enhance-ment, Intergraph has incor-porated its patented videoenhancement and stabiliza-tion algorithm to producea fully and fused integratedgeospatial view that includesfull motion video. The toolalso catalogs and indexes thedata and captures its telem-etry so users can find the datathey need, and “importantly,”Woodling added, “exclude datathey don’t need, so they that they can performpattern of life analyses, for example.”Since full motion video is evolving at arapid pace and its emerging standards areonly loosely adhered to, Intergraph sees itselfchallenged to keep pace with this rapidlydeveloping market technology. “We have aroad map for the next few years,” said Woo-dling, “but we want to be agile enough toreact if new situations develop in the mar-ketplace.”ITT-VISITT-VIS is continuing to develop andmarket its tool, which uses automation toextract features from images. The companyhas experienced success with the adoptionand acceptance of the tool by users. The soft-ware saves time over the hand digitizationstill practiced by many analysts.“The technology is getting faster andmore accurate with every release,” said Leg-eer. ITT-VIS’s soon-to-be-released ENVI 4.8puts the company’s product into the ESRIArcGIS ecosystem. “We already have a strongpartnership with ESRI,” said Legeer. “Thistakes it to the next level.”The move will integrate the ENVI desktopsolution with both the ArcGIS desktop solu-tion and the Arc Server enterprise solution.This catapults ITT-VIS’s product to the enter-prise realm.“Many of our customers already workin an ESRI environment for functions likemapmaking and productization,” said Legeer.“This integration will streamline work flowsand allow users to access our tools and workin a single environment.”At the same time, Intergraph will also bereleasing tools to exploit LiDAR data. “This isone step in a multi-year process towards truemulti-sensor fusion,” said Legeer. “We alreadyhad tools for multispectral and hyperspectralsensors, now we can check offLiDAR.”Next year, ITT-VIS will beintroducing ENVI 5.0, whichwill feature auto registration.“We see that as the first keycomponent in a fusion strat-egy,” said Legeer. “All modali-ties will be able to registerthemselves. This will take usone step further toward avision of multi-sensor fusion.”ENVI 5.0 will also includea powerful display engine thatwill enable a view into all ofthe types of data that will be brought to bearin fusion. Modalities such as video and syn-thetic aperture radar data will be more tightlyintegrated.NORTHROPGRUMMANNorthrop Grumman has expanded itsexisting geospatial portfolio to include geo-spatial data acquisition, collection and pro-cessing of LiDAR, full motion video andpersistent surveillance data, photogrammet-ric services, geographic information systemsand analysis.The company’s offerings support func-tions such as intelligence gathering andmission planning, routing and logistics, exe-cution monitoring, physical asset tracking,exploration of what-if scenarios, data exploita-tion and analysis, highly integrated databasesand sensor networks, and secure commandand control systems.Northrop Grumman sees itself respond-ing to customer demands when it focusesless on geospatial intelligence in isolation andmore on multi-INT, said Love.“The real focus going forward is on takinggeospatial data and pushing it to other intel-ligence types and ingesting other intelligenceinto geospatial,” he added.The company facilitates the fusion differ-ent data types through translators supportedby a service oriented architecture. “All this istransparent to the user,” said Love. “The userdoesn’t care what the application looks like.He just wants to be getting the right kindsof information. That is why we focus on get-ting actionable intelligence to analysts andwarfighters.”TEXTRON

Many traditional ISR activities focused on strategic threats:large state actors with the capability to threaten U.S. interestswith militarily means, including long-range missile or bomberstrikes, armies and other conventional forces. After the attacksof September 11, 2001, terrorism and irregular warfare wereseen as a strategic threat. ISR support to counterterrorism andirregular warfare demands persistent, pervasive and timely sur-veillance instead of scheduled, precise reconnaissance againstknown targets. Gathering intelligence on fast, fleeting, hiddenand unpredictable adversaries requires knowledge of everyone,everywhere, all the time. This is the domain of WAPS.WAPS is often equated with an increase in loiter times andarea coverage, the additive effect of more platforms in rotationover a target area, or the notion of an “unblinking eye” thatstares at an area. We define persistent surveillance as the appli-cation of resources with sufficient coverage, dwell, revisit rate,responsiveness and quality to characterize intelligence issues inoperationally relevant timelines within the context of an associ-ated operational or analytic mission.Providing persistent surveillance requires a delicate balanc-ing of dwell, revisit rates and other factors, not merely optimiz-ing a single system in one dimension. What defines success interms of monitoring, analyzing, understanding and acting toachieve mission objectives changes over time as expectationsincrease and as intelligence priorities are rebalanced to meethybrid and irregular threats.We have learned much from current, high-resolution, high-frame rate systems flown on Predator, Reaper and Project Libertyaircraft, which provide critical capabilities for high-value targettracking and other missions where a relatively narrow fieldof view is acceptable. They were also relatively easy to deploybecause they initially fit within the broad operations, logisticsand training processes that existed for previous systems. Manycurrent systems are limited by a narrow field of view and a lack ofautomated processing and tagging tools. As we learn more aboutthe ISR needs of a rebalanced force structure, a different mix ofISR assets is required.First-generation WAPS systems such as the Army’s ConstantHawk and the Air Force’s Angel Fire provide a wide field of view,but are limited to low resolution and low frame rates. Since thesecapabilities were originally conceived as laboratory experimentsand fielded as quick reaction capabilities, they are manpowerANEW

PROGRAM.BYSTEVENRAMAGEwww.GIF-kmi.com26 | GIF 8.6Service, Web Feature Service and Web Pro-cessing Service Interface Standards), alongwith the OGC Sensor Observation ServiceInterface Standard, make up the geospatialbaseline.“The OGC standards are the integral base-line for everything done on geospatial dataexchange,” explained Jim Morentz, UICDSoutreach director. “As a result of their pres-ence and pervasiveness, they have saved timeand enabled that critical portion of usage tobe implemented very efficiently.”OGC standards play a vital role in win-ning the support of the provider community,Morentz said. “When we talk to companies,we find there is very strong interest in UICDS.We know of more than 130 companies thathave applied to download the software devel-opment kit. Sixty percent of these compa-nies use geospatial visualization, and OGCstandards overcome the biggest hurdle thecompanies face in implementations.“When UICDS project managers ask pro-viders if their interfaces implement OGCstandards, most respond affirmatively, andthey are delighted to learn that that’s allthat’s necessary to enable interoperability,”he continued. “It’s not an overstatement tosay that OGC standards are the key standardsthat have spread acceptance of UICDS amongtechnology providers, solutions providers anduser agencies.”For non-geospatial incident and resourceinformation, UICDS specifies the emergencymanagement community’s EDXL suite ofmessage standards, which includes a resourcemanagement component and a distributionelement for message routing. To meet theneeds of the law enforcement community,UICDS implemented the Law EnforcementInformation Technology Standards Commit-tee suite of standards and, in some cases, madethem interoperable with EDXL exchanges.This cross-standard exchange is made possi-ble by UICDS use of the UCore Digest (https://www.ucore.gov/ucore/node/11) to summarizedisparate information in a standard format.The baseline standard encoding languageused to configure the data is eXtensibleMarkup Language (XML), and thus the XML-based OGC Geography Markup LanguageEncoding Standard provides the geospatialXML data encoding. All the UICDS outputsare XML work products.The geospatial feature dictionary used inUICDS is the National Information ExchangeModel (NIEM). The actual dialect or stan-dards to configure those words came out ofa set of standards, including OGC standardsand EDXL. Not every data model pertains toNIEM, and not every data model is composedof NIEM feature names and relationships. ButEDXL has a migration and convergence proj-ect for NIEM, so more and more data modelsfit together as NIEM becomes more widelyadopted. Where there isn’t a standard, theUICDS project will build it out of the NIEMdictionary.INFORMATIONSHARINGUICDS is a clear and inexpensive answerfor information sharing. But many jurisdic-tions all around the country have ongoinginformation-sharing projects, driven partlyby their own requirements and partly by DHSmandates. The one-to-many UICDS archi-tecture enhances these existing projects byallowing a company or agency with a feder-ated search, an aggregation of GeoRSS feeds,or a legacy decision support system built on ageospatial database to quickly consume newsources of information that are published onUICDS.One attractive feature is that the UICDSconnection isn’t going to overload thoseother sources with irrelevant updates. Rather,the updates will occur only when there is anincident to which the agency has subscribed.In this way, UICDS adds a level of intelligencethat makes data sharing easier.To provide and consume data from UICDS,an agency can quickly write agreements withall of its data-sharing partners. Often agen-cies and their developers are amazed to seehow easily this works, after spending manymonths or even years building similar data-sharing capabilities with just a few partners.Developers using the UICDS development kithave been very successful in implementingadapters into both new and existing data-sharing programs that significantly multiplythe value of those programs.“An information-sharing architecture likeUICDS depends on being able to connect toand interoperate with all kinds of informationsystems, sometimes quickly and in an ad hocfashion,” Morentz noted. “Sharing geospatialinformation among various jurisdictions waspreviously one of the biggest obstacles to thiskind of interoperability. But that problem isnow largely solved, thanks to OGC standardsbuilt into UICDS that enable geospatial Webservices to communicate.”✯Steven Ramage is executive director,marketing and communications, for theOpen Geospatial Consortium.Contact Editor Harrison Donnelly atharrisond@kmimediagroup.com.For more information related to this subject,search our archives at www.GIF-kmi.com.www.GIF-kmi.com GIF 8.6 | 27Facing theISR ChallengeThe results of themore than $2 billioninvestment in the ISRsurge are driving the collection of unprec-edented volumes of data. We will have eyes onthe threat to an extent never before achievedfrom multisensor sources in real time andnear real time. Fully exploited, this datashould give our warfighters clear situationalawareness and informed decision-making.However, in many respects, we are no closernow to fully exploiting the information acrossthe full spectrum of warfighters and sharingit widely to all consumers than we were onSeptember 11, 2001.Although data is pouring out of sensorsat a constantly increasing rate, it is beingburied in stovepiped systems or waiting onthe processing floor to be analyzed and lever-aged. Adding more analysts is an evolutionaryanswer to a revolutionary need. Full exploita-tion is not being achieved on the current pathto enterprise data sharing.The benefit of the end state is clear: wide-spread access to raw and processed sensordata across services and systems, sharing theload of processing to any and every analyst,decision-maker and warfighter in the chain.What is not clear is how to achieve thatend vision. Our frontline warfighters deservemore.The first steps have been taken in theTCPED process across the Distributed Com-mon Ground System (DCGS) enterprise. Datahas been exposed across programs of recordand coalition partners through the use of theData Integration Backbone. Programs areshifting to an enterprise level of sharing ofinformation and processes through slow andincremental steps.The DCGS enterprise has catalogued andengineered a total of 157 services that can beexposed and leveraged across the enterprise,and in so doing, accomplishing unification ofcapability. Yet the adoption of these is laggingbehind their availability.The technology community has beenbanging the drums of the art of the possible.But technology is only one dimension of theproblem, and is at best an enabler for achiev-ing the full vision of interoperability.The entire acquisition culture must bereceptive to a different way of doing business.The culture must be able to adopt and usewhat other programs have built rather than“roll their own.”If the technology challenges the bound-aries of the culture—as it has for yearswith service oriented architecture-enabledinteroperability—then either the culturechanges or the technology fails. The stake-holders need to see themselves as members ofa larger community, with their sensors, dataand analytical tools as common componentsthat can and should plug and play, versus“metal benders” that build applications thatwire in and connect.Currently, the acquisition culture rewardsby adherence to and delivery of requirementsShifting to the Enterprise LevelTECHNOLOGY

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INTEROPERABILITY.BYELIHERTZEli Hertzhertz_eli@bah.comShifting to the Enterprise LevelWhat do you see as the most importanttechnological advances from a militaryperspective currently under way in ISR?Following are their responses.Editor’s Note: In connection with this issue’s Cover Story Question & Answerinterview with Lieutenant General John C. Koziol, deputy under secretary ofdefense for joint and coalition warfighter support and director of the Departmentof Defense ISR Task Force, Geospatial Intelligence Forum posed this question to anumber of leading companies in the field:www.GIF-kmi.com28 | GIF 8.6driven largely by its own set of users. This isa culture of individual program entities, andas such challenges the accomplishment ofinteroperability. An enabling culture is onethat sees itself within a construct of a citizenof a community—only successful when rawand exploited data is widely accessible, andonly successful if redundancy is eliminated.This culture can be achieved through incen-tives designed to reward sharing of data andservices and to penalize redundancy or datafirewalls.Full realization of the scope of the visionis also dependent on the economics involved.The economic realities must be responsive tothe “rhythms” of the technology and alignedwith the governance model. Current fundingpractices are misaligned with the governancemodel for an enterprise level of interoper-ability.Program-specific funding that is alignedsolely to realization of program-level func-tionality fails to create incentives at the levelneeded. Instead, funding should be a rewardto those who can prove that their data anddata processing services have wide enterprisereach and a breadth of users, with provenmetrics that are confirmation of enterpriseuse.The technology, economics and cultureneeded are harmonious yet incomplete inaccomplishing the end state.The policies need to be the bindingand integrating force, and be in alignmentwith the supporting technology and cul-ture that embodies them. Policies come inmany forms and have a profound impacton the funding, design and accreditation ofthe enterprise. Updating policy changes canhappen at a glacial pace and can either beenablers or obstructions.When out of synchronization with thedrivers of the technology, policy can beinterpreted loosely and met to the minimumlevel of compliance. A timely and alignedpolicy should clarify enterprise behaviorand enforce net-centric behavior. An archaicpolicy left unquestioned is a continual obsta-cle. An example is the current policy foraccreditation of services. The need to shareis obstructed by a lack of openness to reci-procity.Finally, the governance model must bean orchestrator, balancing and tuning eachof these dimensions to ensure that they areworking in harmony. The governance modelmust strike the balance of incentives versusdirection, define a clear vision and buildconsensus through clear determination andcommunication of the value of the enterprise.The governance model must “dial in” theaccountability at the enterprise and be driventhrough the policies.We are close to a level of situationalawareness of the threat that will keep theadvantage in our asymmetrical battlefield,where it needs to be, with our warfightersand decision-makers. The quantity of dataand technology to serve it up are in place. Toenable full realization of the vision requiresthe comprehensive orchestration of everydimension.✯Eli Hertz is a senior associate with BoozAllen Hamilton.Ready for what’s next. www.boozallen.comFrom real space to cyberspace, today’s warﬁ ghter is faced with the mostdiverse battle space in history. Booz Allen Hamilton helps our clients meet the enemy head-on by providingintelligent, innovative solutions that defense forces need to achieve mission success. Whether you’remanaging today’s issues or looking beyond the horizon, count on us to help you be ready for what’s next.Ready for what’s next.Agility.Precision.Efﬁ ciency.S T R A T E G Y & O R G A N I Z A T I O N I T E C H N O L O G Y I O P E R A T I O N S I A N A L Y T I C Swww.GIF-kmi.com GIF 8.6 | 29With the exponen-tial growth of advancedgeospatial intelligence (AGI) tasking at theonset of Operation Enduring Freedom, theneed to deliver timely, relevant and accu-rate products and services to the warfighterbecame the top priority for the Army’snational-to-theater (NTT) GEOINT program.Faced with increasing pressure to cope withthe growth in CENTCOM tasking, managingfirst-phase production of national technicalmeans and airborne collection, and over-seeing federation AGI production for thecommand, the Army G-2 directed the NTT’s513th Military Intelligence Brigade to begindevelopment of a production managementtool called the AGI/MASINT Reporting andDissemination Service (AMRDS).Since its inception, AMRDS has revo-lutionized operations for the Army NTTprogram by standardizing requirements andproduction management across distributedexploitation nodes, resulting in increasedproduction capacity and quality control.The AMRDS is an innovative, Web-basedapplication used by nearly 1,000 analystsat more than 15 DoD and civilian agenciesaround the world to produce intelligenceproducts and distribute them directly to thewarfighter.Developed and maintained for theArmy through a joint effort by ElectronicWarfare Associates/Information & Infrastruc-ture Technologies, Riverside Research Insti-tute and L-3 Communications, the AMRDSwas born out of the need for a Web-based toolto manage requests for information (RFIs),process analytical work into Web documentsand perform centralized management.AMRDS enables the Army NTT federationRevolutionizing National-to-Theater OperationsTHEARMY’S

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TIME?In my view, themost significant tech-nological advance inairborne ISR is the development of wide areasurveillance systems (WASS).Gimbal-mounted electro-optical andinfrared sensor systems (EO/IRs) have beenthe paradigm of imagery intelligence for thepast 20-plus years. Over that time, EO/IRshave become more accurate in their ability togeo-locate ground targets through the use ofinertial measurement units, rangefinders andmoving maps. They also have become moremission effective by adding laser modulesto illuminate and designate those groundtargets.As the collection altitudes of mannedplatforms were increased in recent conflictsto minimize detection and avoid groundthreats, EO/IRs were equipped with bet-ter optics, including daytime and night-time “spotter scopes,” and digital imagingenhancements. Most recently, EO/IRs havebeen engineered to fuse the collections fromeach of their sensors to provide the warf-ighter a more comprehensive “picture” ofground targets and areas of interest.Despite these advances, the gimbal-mounted EO/IR has not been able to over-come what some perceive as its inherentlimitation: a relatively narrow field-of-viewoftentimes described as “looking at the bat-tlefield through a soda straw.” This inherentlimitation has been addressed in militaryoperations in two ways. The first is by employ-ing multiple platforms to generate multipleimages of the battlefield that are collectedand analyzed by tactical operation centers onthe ground. The other is by the introduction,on manned platforms, of a new generationof EO/IR sensor operators, who are perhapsmore accurately described as “airborne imag-ery analysts.” These operationally focusedand situationally aware crewmembers havethe natural ability, training and experienceto conduct real-time integrated ISR over thebattlefield.WASS are multiple arrays of sensorson a single platform designed to give thewarfighter a total picture of the battlefield,with imagery fusion on-demand to take fulladvantage of the multiple sensor arrays andtypes.WASS sensors include high resolutionEO and IR still-imagery cameras, full motionvideo (FMV) systems, multi- and hyper-spec-tral systems, and other targeting sensors,all with the ability to be georeferenced andfused. The advantage of a WASS is the abilityto loiter over an area of interest for long peri-ods, continuously monitoring the situationwhile collecting and recording data. Theserecorded data sets can then be correlated todetect minute changes or to provide forensicdata if an incident occurs within the area ofinterest.Once a target of interest is detected, theWASS has the ability to hand off the target toa more traditional EO/IR FMV system, whichcan then focus on the smaller area/target.Over time, a WASS provides the warfighterwith a complete picture of the battlefield,both current and historic, from a single air-borne platform.WASS will, without question, create aparadigm shift in imagery intelligence, but itis not a paradigm shift without major issues.How much of the collected imagery will webe able to transmit to the warfighter in realtime, and how much of the collected anddeliverable imagery will constitute useful,much less actionable, intelligence?Concurrent advances in microwave, 3Gand 4G cellular, and satellite transmissionsystems may soon allow us to deliver thehigh volumes of imagery (and metadata)collected by WASS, but it remains to be seenhow we will separate the “wheat from thechaff” for the warfighter, in real time.✯A former Air Force pilot and specialoperations combat controller, Bob Neumannis president of AirScan.Bob Neumannrneumann@airscan.comBYBOBNEUMANNTotal Picture of the Battlefieldwww.GIF-kmi.com30 | GIF 8.6to virtually “lift and shift” productionresources based on changes in missiondemands. For example, if a crisis were tooccur on the Korean Peninsula, AMRDScould be used to virtually transfer a por-tion of the Army NTT analysts supportingUSEUCOM to a temporary crisis supportsub-organization of the U.S. Forces KoreaNTT production node.AMRDS provides a central database toalign requirements and collected data againstscheduled and finished reports as managersbuild prioritized production logs to meetintelligence needs. By automatically trackingand associating requirements and imageryto the scheduled report, the analyst is freedfrom having to fill in much of the metadatarequired by intelligence community stan-dards for shared-space publications.The AMRDS report builder also capturesgeographic data so that accumulated analysisinformation can be queried and dynami-cally repackaged into a variety of formats,including Google Earth KML, ESRI shape-files, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, Web-based maps and summary reports. A recentlyadded services-oriented architecture (SOA)component is being used to exchange datawith other National System for Geospatial-Intelligence elements.AMRDS customers, who have accessto nearly 400,000 reports, can create “MyGEOINT” accounts on JWICS and SIPRNETto keep stored queries and preferences. Userscan submit RFIs to any of the participat-ing exploitation organizations. Customerscan search for reports in a number of ways:geographically using a navigable map or bykeyword, intelligence topic, target number,associated requirement number, associatedRFI and analysis technique.Points of interest within the report aredisplayed in the user’s preferred coordinatesystem, with links to close-up maps of thepoints. GIS data can be downloaded andused by desktop applications in a variety offormats, allowing consumers to overlay thegeospatial information with data from othersources. Customers can subscribe to reportcategories or use stored queries to receivee-mail notification when new reports arepublished.The AMRDS development team is initiat-ing a major redesign for version 3.0. The newversion implements a full Java enterprisearchitecture and employs cloud technology,giving the system the ability to expand tomeet a rapidly growing number of users.SOA services will be expanded to better inte-grate with national databases and require-ment systems, as well as intelligence sourceswhich provide situational awareness for theanalyst. Future plans include developmentof Java plug-ins for desktop electronic lighttables such as BAE’s SOCET GXP, givinganalysts the ability to directly insert GIS datainto draft AMRDS reports and pull AMRDSdata to overlay in the desktop application.AMRDS represents a “for operations byoperations” systems engineering strategy inwhich developers are intimately familiar withoperations by being embedded with manag-ers and analysts in a rapid-prototype environ-ment. Located within the Army’s NTT largestand busiest GEOINT production node, the513th MI BDE, AMRDS developers analyzeoperational needs/deficiencies and providetechnical solutions, receiving immediatefeedback on capabilities impacting supportto CENTCOM theater operations. AMRDSdevelopment efforts benefit from feedbackobtained by other production nodes as wellas request for system improvement fromforward deployed analysts.The secret of the AMRDS team’s successremains the close working relationship ofdeveloper, production user and end customer.This teamwork has yielded a highly success-ful federated production environment witha proud history of supporting the soldier onthe ground, using GEOINT to save lives andsatisfy operational requirements.✯Joe Fausnight is AMRDS programdeveloper lead for the Riverside ResearchInstituteThe Revolution Will Be TelevisedTHE

SINGLE

MOST

IMPORTANTISRTECHNOLOGY

UNDER

WAY

TODAY

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FULL

MOTION

VIDEO

MANAGEMENT.BYJONARMSTRONG

ANDCHARLIEMORRISONThe Defense Advanced Research ProjectsAgency is flight-testing a new airborne sensorthat will gather continuous, high-resolutionvideo of an area the size of a small city. DubbedARGUS-IS, its 1.8 gigapixel camera will gener-ate 100 terabytes of streaming video—everysingle hour. That’s almost 90,000 times thecurrent volume of current tactical video feeds.In other words, tomorrow’s flood of videodata is going to make today’s fire hose looklike a squirt gun.The coming revolution in ISR video is soextraordinary, it will fundamentally changethe way we think about video intelligence.That deluge of data streaming from the cloudscan pinpoint terrorists, expose enemy secrets,turn the tide of battle and save lives, but onlyif we can tap into it effectively. That’s why thesingle most important ISR technology underway today is full motion video management.Today we have an excellent infrastructurefor collecting and exploiting still imagery. Andwe’ve made some steps to adapt that infra-structure to motion video. But a revolution iscoming, and it will take more than adaptationto keep up.The first step in the video managementrevolution is to treat video like video, ratherthan breaking it up in into one- to six-minutechunks and treating it like still image files.Next, we must be able to steam that motionimagery on-demand to any location acrossthe enterprise—regardless of where the datawas collected, processed or stored. On top ofthat, we must embed IM chat and overlaidintelligence from other sensors and sourcesacross the battlefield.To fully exploit the unique nature of videointelligence, it is also useful to think aboutwatching a cable news network. A newscasteris interviewing a reporter, who appears livevia a separate video stream. At the top of thescreen, stock quotes scroll by, continuouslyupdated. Time and temperature flash in thecorner. And along the bottom, various head-lines from the day’s major events run in con-stant succession. Information from hundredsof sources comes together simultaneously tocreate that one screen, which the viewer caninterpret in real time.Now take that analogy to video intelligence.Charlie Morrisoncharlie.morrison@lmco.comJon Armstrongjon.w.armstrong@lmco.comwww.GIF-kmi.com GIF 8.6 | 31Imagine two, three or even more video feedsstreaming live on screen. Along the side, MIRCchat transcripts from analysts scrolls in realtime, conveying feedback from troops on theground. At the top, alerts about new feeds,reports and events are continuously streaming,each one inviting the viewer to click for more.And at the bottom are options to performdetailed analytics on the incoming streams.At your fingertips are tools to watch, analyze,interpret and fuse intelligence as it happens.We call that concept “evolved FMV,” andwe’ve developed a prototype that we are test-ing out at exercises like Empire Challenge anddelivering as part of the Valiant Angel program.We believe that CNN-like view will be a corner-stone of the video intelligence revolution. Withit, analysts can digest more data, connect moredots and make more confident decisions.That leap ahead in intelligence deliverymeans driving towards consolidated, feder-ated search that can reach across multiplearchives and databases to pull rapid, relevantresults. Those critical improvements will bethe price of admission to the video intelligenceof tomorrow.While the challenge of this coming revo-lution is daunting, the potential results areastounding. Imagine the ARGUS eye in thesky, sweeping an entire city at 15 frames a sec-ond. With the right tools in hand, small, agileteams of analysts could follow multiple targetssimultaneously, task sensors, alert fire teams,and drive operations with speed, precision andconfidence.✯Jon Armstrong works on full motion videoprograms, and Charlie Morrison is in businessdevelopment, for Lockheed Martin.The military intel-ligence communityhas taken huge stridesforward in its efforts to achieve persistentawareness. The proliferation of manned andunmanned platforms and multi-source intel-ligence sensors in space, in the air, on theground and at sea furnish unprecedentedvolumes of data that, when processed andanalyzed in a timely and relevant manner,provides exceptional insight into planned andongoing activities of adversaries and potentialthreats.And yet, the military intelligence commu-nity struggles to fully leverage this “goldmine”of data and produce actionable intelligence.Data deluge, the complexity of data and thevolume at which data is presented to analystsare among the key factors which offset manyof the advantages of new and improved collec-tion capabilities.Another key area challenging the com-munity’s ability to harness the power of newcollection capabilities pertains to the missionfocus and ground concept of operations ofindividual unmanned aerial systems. In thecase of a full motion video-capable UAS,many missions focus exclusively on recon-naissance, surveillance and target acquisition(RSTA) requirements while other missionsare focused on ISR requirements. As repre-sented in the attached graphics, RSTA andISR missions come with unique challenges.RSTA and ISR missions require distinctly dif-ferent analytical tools and the complexity oftools is a fundamental concern.In 2008, Gregory Treverton and C. BryanGabbard of the Rand Corp. published a paperentitled “Assessing the Tradecraft of Intel-ligence Analysis,” which identified the “toolcomplexity” issue head on. “Too often ana-lysts regarded the tool-builders as in a worldof their own, building tools that analystscould not quickly master. As one analyst froma service intelligence organization put it,‘Analysts are imprisoned not by organizationsor sources but, rather, by tools,’” Trevertonand Gabbard observed.Military acquisition organizations andtechnology providers should consider thisobservation seriously and begin addressingthe challenge by collaborating to devise waysand means to be more effective in field-ing analytical tools that can adaptively andmore effectively work in both RSTA and ISRenvironments. Improved interoperability, lifecycle cost reductions, improved efficiency,more relevant and robust analytical productsand reduced analyst stress would be but a fewof the benefits derived from fielding adaptiveand flexible RSTA/ISR analytical tools.A roundtable discussion on this topiccould begin the process in the community tobring more effective RSTA/ISR tools and tech-niques into the field that will benefit the menand women in our military that so greatlydeserve the benefit of improved intelligenceanalysis.✯Jim P. Dolan is senior vice presidentof strategic initiatives for Textron SystemsCorp./Overwatch.RSTAANDISRMISSIONS

REQUIRE

DISTINCTLY

DIFFERENT

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TOOLS,AND

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TOOLS

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CONCERN.BYJIMDOLANBringing Effective Analysis to the FieldJim Dolanjpdolan@systems.textron.com“The ability to col-lect, communicate,process and protectinformation is the most important factordefining military power,” writes Brian D.Berkowitz in The New Face of War: How WarWill Be Fought in the 21st Century. “Infor-mation technology is so important in wartoday that it overwhelms everything else.”We are at a distinctive tipping point inthe development of high-technology revolu-tions in ISR. We find ourselves at the inter-section of the incorporation of navigationand electronic warfare.This is happening alongside exponentialTipping Point in ISRWE

OFFICIALProduced by Geospatial Intelligence Forum www.gif-kmi.comHOW DAILYThe ultimate news and information resourceat your ﬁngertips for GEOINT 2010TThThThThTheeeeuuulltititmamateetetnnnewwsssaanddininffofofoormrmmatattiioionnrrreeesosouruceceOFFICIAL GEOINT 2010 SHOW DAILYDistribution includes:Early morning room drops at all designatedCONFERENCEHOTELSs4OALLATTENDEESASTHEYENTERthe exhibit hall and at general sessions eachMORNINGs!VAILABLEAT53')&AND'EOSPATIAL)NTELLIGENCE&ORUMBOOTHSs#OMPLETE3HOW$AILY0$&AVAILABLEFORWORLDWIDEVIEWINGATWWWGIF KMICOMs%MAILLINKDAILYTONEARLYGEOSPATIALANDINTELLIGENCECOMMUNITYINDIVIDUALS&OREDITORIALSUBMISSIONSPLEASECONTACT(ARRISON$ONNELLY%DITOR  XHARRISOND KMIMEDIAGROUPCOM&ORADVERTISINGPLEASECONTACT3COTT0ARKER!SSOCIATE0UBLISHER  XSCOTTP KMIMEDIAGROUPCOM30%!+%2")/3With the powerful line upof speakers available at theGEOINT Symposium, detailedspeaker bios are essential toattendees as they evaluateprogram opportunities, andalso make a great referencefor after the show.3(/7.%73()'(,)'(43Exclusive interviewsand commentaryfrom the show ﬂoor.$!),9!'%.$!As the ofﬁcial and exclusiveShow Daily we havethe latest conﬁrmedagenda provided byUSGIF. The Show Dailyis the resource for guidingattendees to everythingGEOINT and where andwhen it’s happening.02%332%,%!3%3The GEOINT Symposium isthe ideal time for companiesto announce new productsand capabilities and the ShowDaily is the perfect tool to drivebusiness to your booth.advances in technologies using remotelypiloted aircraft and sensors that provide, forall practical purposes, constant observationand video capture of activities and events ofactors on the ground—without the knowl-edge they are being observed or their actionsrecorded. The electro-optical/infrared sensorson many UAVs are unparalleled at acquiringhigh-quality motion video. These UAVs canoperate at high or low altitudes, where thereis a smaller amount of atmospheric haze, asmaller focal-length and smaller stabilizationrequirements. And sensor technology contin-ues to improve.The leapfrog advancements made insatellite communications and ground con-trol stations with live communication linkscontribute to the explosive growth in theunmatched effectiveness of unmanned aerialsystems (UAS). The UASs of today includeplatforms with continually advancing elec-tro-optical and infrared sensor capabilities,capturing multiple motion imagery streamsthat enable effective IED searches, betterpattern-of-life analysis, and improved “overthe hill” (mountain) vision.In extreme cases, when equipped withmunitions, these sensors enable the kill withgreater precision from farther away than everconceived before UAVs existed.While the technology in the ISR industryis quickly evolving, the mission remains thesame: to provide the fullest possible com-prehension of adversarial activities to thecommanding officers. The new UAVs have therange and endurance to provide this unre-lenting overview of the battlefield and areflexible enough for dynamic mission tasking.The elevated costs of these new tech-nologies for use within ISR missions arebeing embraced as our global military andcitizens balance our cultural requirementsof supporting the costs of these new war-fare tools with tacit expectation of fewercasualties and quick (or quicker) missionsuccesses. Militaries and governments bol-ster our collective reliance on this highesttechnology capability with their atten-tive coalition strategies and coordinatedadvocation of advancing requirements forthis new era of remotely piloted aircraftand the unrelenting, watchful eye of theonboard sensors that empower successfulmissions.✯Leah Wood is defense and intelligenceindustry manager for Intergraph.www.GIF-kmi.com GIF 8.6 | 33Regarded throughout theDepartment of Defense andthe Intelligence Communityas the industry leader

Bonus Distribution at:GEOINT 2010 SymposiumThe preeminent event of the year for the defense, intelligence and homeland security communities.November 1-4, New Orleans, LAThe